So this! is growing old...

It's not what I thought

“What do old people do?” I asked a year an a half ago as I approached 78. I’d never considered I’d be one of them

.

Public figures were on my mind. Authors and politicians. Actors and Nobel Laureates. TV hosts, podcasters and scientists. They are in the public eye, some of them fixtures of decades. Then we stop hearing about them. And then, after a decade or two, we read their obituary.

What were they doing in those years?

Did they feel like has-beens? After the middle years, was it all decline unto death?

I didn’t believe they just wanted more time with their families. I didn’t believe that those mighty beings could be satisfied with cruises, gardening, exercise classes and luncheons with friends. Worse, I imagined them in continuing care facilities and bored out of their trees? If their minds were still working at all.

Ageism

Yes, I was showing my ageism, but I didn’t care. I never wanted to grow old - like that. I didn’t want to be invisible, overlooked, patronized, side-lined, stout, forgetful, and on and on and on and on. Plus, I was genuinely curious about what fills those many years after you age out of your middle years and fall into … into what?

Yes, this reveals my extroverted personality, thriving on sociability and influence. I’ve loved this “We can change the world” ethos of my cohort, and wanted to die mid-stride planning the revolution.

It hasn’t all be clear sailing. I’ve been unable to walk, confined to bed and walkers, many times, always bouncing back from surgeries that restored my ability to be upright without pain. I had cancer at 60 - stage 3 colon cancer at that - and defied the odds and survived. In the middle of life, you assume you will recover. What about this part of life - from 80 to 100 - though? The threat of decline bubbled in my unconscious - a bitter brew.

And so, at the start of 2023, unable to deny my age, I plunged into this mystery: what do old people do?

The yoga of life review

On this blog, I’ve documented my resistance to aging. No holding back out of embarrassment. I’ve always been a truth seeker. And, as an extrovert, I tend to reveal rather than withhold what’s on my mind.

Coming of aging, for me, at this time, has been life review and, as hard as it was to face some mistakes, choices, experiences, and losses lurking beneath my shiny exterior. I found this work invigorating. Some opportunities clearly would never come again. I didn’t have children. I was childless by choice and mothered projects and ideas and movements. Now I see the beauty of love and family and generations and felt suspended with no net rather than nestled in the valley with a large family. Yet this was my choice and I accept the consequences. I’ve grieved, while celebrating all I’ve been able to do other than mothering.

This is just one example of all I have had to accept about my life. My self-image was coming apart at the seams, yes, but it’s being replaced by a sort of peaceful ease with all of me in this sliver of time called a life.

Light at the end of the tunnel

From tunnel vision of striving, I was better able to scan the expanse of my life with tenderness and appreciation. Time itself changed. With the mystery of death on the horizon, I’ve had more and more perspective, like seeing my life as a landscape with features rather than a string of events, each encased in judgement. The more I stepped back, the vaster it became, a very human story among billions of other humans who’ve lived and died. Nothing special, and that’s the beauty of it.

We expand

I now catch glimpses of one answer to my question: what do old people do? It’s not what my younger self thought. We expand. Our inner life billows with meaning. A contentment comes that wasn’t available no matter how many spiritual practices I did.

Mind you, this took excruciating work. I had to repair relationships I’d left in the dust as I swung like a monkey amidst the treetops. Without knowing it, I’d deeply hurt some people. Many had stuck with me over time with great love. Some distanced. Some still hate me. This is all part of the landscape of my life, an offering to the greater life. This all makes me human and not heroic.

The call of the sea

Coming of Aging is like setting out from a safe, familiar harbor where the pattern of life is well known… because the sea of mystery is calling. At the mouth of the harbor there are rocks and shoals. It takes perseverance and skill to navigate this barrier reef, and it can be perilous. Many people never choose to get in a boat, leaving the familiar behind.

These rocks have banged on my my fragile shell. Once beyond the first bumps, I’m now in it, no going back or, perhaps forward. However, oh my, I’ve found so many others navigating this transition. They offer guidance. They inspire me. I feel part of another clan paddling towards wisdom.

The fact that I’m writing this blog says I still have plenty of ego. I’m not a monk in the high reaches of the mountains. I’m not quietly engaged in crafts, letting the changes come quietly.

No, this is how I do everything. My guiding motto has been what Helen Keller said:

Life is either a great adventure or it’s nothing.

Sure, maybe this will become a memoir between two covers and sold in bookstores. I have always wanted to do a one-woman show. Maybe this is it. My public facing self still dreams, and, as always, I think telling one another our stories is a crucial part of collective learning. Now, though, I’m relishing the pleasure of aging itself, of growing into wisdom as the shell of me falls away.